Queensland farmers are calling on the state and federal governments to put politics aside and fast-track disaster relief funding in the wake of Cyclone Debbie, as Deputy Premier Jackie Trad says Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is "acting like a child" over the matter.

The Federal Government's Category C grants would allow primary producers to quickly access up to $25,000 to help with repairs.

A row erupted on Wednesday when the Commonwealth rejected a request from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to release the funding.

Mr Joyce said it could not be approved because a letter was sent, rather than a proper submission.

"You've actually got to fill out the application form," he said.

"This is an absurdity — they've got 14,000 extra public servants since when the LNP was in, and that's as good as we're going to get."

But Ms Trad said Mr Joyce was just being difficult.

"He's acting like a child on this matter," Ms Trad said.

"What we need is for them to assess the information we put forward, to recognise in the first instance that primary producers and many small businesses in the disaster affected areas have been significantly impacted.

"That was the purpose of the letter from the Premier to the Prime Minister. Number one, acknowledge it.

"Queensland is doing the work and we will be submitting the comprehensive business case and application form required in order to allow all of these disaster-affected primary producers, not-for-profit and small business operators to access grants."

Trad, Palaszczuk shouldn't be 'smart alecs'

However, Mr Joyce said his staff would work over Easter to release the funding, if a full submission was made today.

"In this instance, Deputy Premier Jackie Trad and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk are trying to be smart alecs with this, and they shouldn't be smart alecs, just get the work done," Mr Joyce said.

"They know they've done the wrong thing, because they started sending through more information as recently as last night."

Ms Palaszczuk said on Wednesday she had thought the letter would suffice.

"Barnaby Joyce said that he wanted me to write to him to cut the red tape to get the money out the door — I've done that," Ms Palaszczuk said.

But Mr Joyce disputed that.

"I've never had a conversation with her and I've never asked her for that," Mr Joyce said.

"To the best of my knowledge, the only letter I've got from her was the two-and-a-half pager."

Public political stoush in poor taste: farmer

Bowen farmer Carl Walker lost every capsicum seedling at his north Queensland property, along with his packing shed.

"Both sides are having a bit of a stoush in public is in poor taste to the people on the ground who are suffering — very poor taste," he said.

"There's people out there, possibly even going to lose their businesses.

"I'm not in favour of paperwork — I'm a bloody farmer — but I understand it has to be done, and I agree it has to be done.

"It should never have gone public — it should have been 'oi, bloody paperwork is wrong, fix it up, send it back, we'll sort it out'."

Farmer Robert Hinrichsen grows vegetables near Beaudesert, south-west of Brisbane, where he said the need for immediate emergency funding was clear.

He said the political debate was "frustrating".

"Realistically if you can't drive into this district and assess the situation in an hour, you shouldn't be doing that job — there's people who need assistance and it should just be forthcoming," he said.

"We've lost quite a bit of crop, some of it's just been completely washed out, really bad soil degradation, some of the fields are going to be a couple of years."

Call for 'political argy bargy' to stop

Rural lobby group AgForce said it could not understand the political squabbling over disaster relief funding.

AgForce chief executive Charles Burke said the information was difficult to get.

"To be honest, some of the requirements to make the applications are very strict and onerous, so we do have to gather that information and there's probably still some gaps in that information yet," he said.

"There's a lot of people in grazing industries who simply haven't been able to accurately assess the damage yet."

Mr Burke said the important thing was to deliver help where it was needed.

"If people are in urgent need of assistance and there are across the state, then those people should have access to those emergency programs as soon as possible," he said.

"It happens every time — it astounds us that there's this political argy bargy about it, but all we want is for people to get access to relief and recovery arrangements."